At the time of this writing, Congress is debating passing another economic stimulus bill to provide relief against the COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic created hardships throughout the country for a year, the U.S. government passed two stimulus bills in 2020 that created or funded multiple financial relief programs for various needs. While there is no program that specifically provides relief to water and wastewater utilities’ losses in revenue, there are several programs funded through the two federal relief bills that can help customers pay past due or current water and/or wastewater bills (“water bills” for short). Water bill payment assistance relieves some of the financial burden on customers that are in most need, and also provides utilities needed revenues to cover unpaid bills and prevent shutoffs in many cases. While there is financial assistance to pay water bills, the fragmentation of the programs can be complicated to navigate. This blog post provides a summary and links to our new factsheets that describe several federally-funded coronavirus relief programs to date that may be used to pay water bills. Information about where customers can go for help is provided.
Tag: financial assistance
Water and wastewater utilities are adapting to the rapidly changing conditions imposed across the country and the world by the COVID-19 pandemic. With stay-at-home orders, closures of schools, restaurants, and other businesses, and major disruptions to the workforce and operations, utilities are changing practices and procedures every day to continue to operate and provide the general public with an essential public service. How will these changing conditions and operations affect utility finances? How will utilities accommodate these financial effects?
While the current environment continues to rapidly change, it is nearly impossible to comprehensively assess all financial implications to utilities at this time. However, some practices are becoming more commonplace among utilities across the country. This is an attempt to consider their financial implications on utilities on a broad level, and it follows a March 23rd webinar that we conducted with the UNC School of Government. As the weeks go on, utilities should monitor their revenues and expenses to more accurately estimate the effects of COVID-19 on their own finances. Continue reading
- The UNC EFC’s webinar on financial benchmarking tools for elected Maryland officials is TOMORROW from 1-3PM ET! Lea… https://t.co/dvrxpdrhl2
- @GEFAloan Information about the Georgia Rates Dashboard can be found here: https://t.co/N3ZMh6rEof
- REMINDER! Learn how to maintain long-term financial sustainability in this FREE webinar on May 31. Hosted by the UN… https://t.co/CIfHsyIuTj
